27 December 2012

2012 Yule Festival and Wintry Yule Warsteed

I love the seasonal festivals and in-game events that occur each year in Turbine's Lord of the Rings Online. While some are pretty hit or miss with me – I never got into the Treasure-Hunting Event or the Shipwrecked Mariner quest, for instance – the Yule Festival has always been my favourite in-game activity.

Now that the Riders of Rohan expansion has finally come out, Turbine upped the festivities by adding new rewards – particularly the War-steed Cosmetic Set - Wintry Yule Appearance.

Standard mounts have now become pretty obsolete in my gaming experience (the only time I use them is when I fall victim to rubberbanding or horrific lag when on my Warsteed). I purchased a Heavy Set of the Entwash after I could no longer bear having a plain-looking steed; but after a month or so, I was starting to grow eager for more options. When I found out that there would be Warsteed cosmetics available at the rewards vendors this year, I knew I had to get my hands on them!

Heavy Set of the Entwash

Unfortunately, the only way to get these cosmetics is by completing all three Tiers of "The More The Merrier" deed – Tier one requires you to complete 30 daily quests; Tier two requires 60; and Tier three requires 120. This, of course, is a lot of dailies. And unfortunately, it turns the Yule Festival into more of a grindfest than anything else.

That being said, I spent about a week doing dailies (occasionally buying festival tickets to reset quests here and there to speed things up a bit). And earlier this afternoon, I finally got my
War-steed Cosmetic Set - Wintry Yule Appearance, with enough tokens left over to buy the other three Steeds available from the vendors (I opted instead to get the Horned Snowbeast Cloak and Boots, which Beornara is wearing in the photo below).